What factors contributed to the United States’ “industrial evolution”?

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DURING THE 1840S AND 1850S, Americans experienced a profound economic transformation. Since 1800, the total output of the U.S. economy had multiplied twelvefold. Four fundamental changes in American society fueled this remarkable economic growth.

Changes That Led to Economic Growth

> Changes That Led to Economic Growth

  • Millions of Americans moved from farms to towns and cities.
  • Factory workers (primarily in towns and cities) increased to about 20 percent of the labor force by 1860.
  • A shift from water power to steam as a source of energy raised productivity, especially in factories and transportation. Railroads in particular harnessed steam power, speeding transport and cutting costs.
  • Agricultural productivity nearly doubled between 1800 and 1860, spurring the nation’s economic growth more than any other factor.

Historians often refer to this cascade of changes as an industrial revolution. However, these changes did not cause an abrupt discontinuity in America’s economy or society, which remained overwhelmingly agricultural. Old methods of production continued alongside the new. The changes in the American economy during the 1840s and 1850s might better be termed “industrial evolution.”

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Figure false: Harvesting Grain with Cradles
Figure false: This late-nineteenth-century painting shows a grain harvest during the mid-nineteenth century at Bishop Hill, Illinois, a Swedish community where the artist, Olof Krans, and his parents settled in 1850. The men swing cradles, slowly cutting a swath through the grain; the women gather the cut grain into sheaves to be hauled away later for threshing. Although most Bishop Hill farmers had only a few family members and a hired hand or two, they could call upon the labor of the many men and women from the community at harvest time. Notice that all the work is done by hand; there is no machine in sight. Private Collection/Art Resource, NY.

CHAPTER LOCATOR

What factors contributed to the United States’ “industrial evolution”?

How did the free-labor ideal account for economic inequality?

What factors spurred westward expansion?

Why did the United States go to war with Mexico?

How did reform movements change after 1840?

Conclusion: How was white freedom in the West and North defined?

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CHRONOLOGY

1837

  • – Steel plow is patented.

1840s

  • – Practical mechanical reapers are created.

1844

  • – Samuel F. B. Morse demonstrates telegraph.

1850

  • – Railroads are granted six square miles of land for every mile of track.

1861

  • – California is connected to the nation by telegraph.